The Kingdom on the Waves Read online

  I came upon our tent, our fire-pit, our blankets. Bono was there rolling his belongings into a bundle, but his actions were slow and hesitant. He regarded, perplexed, the rocks encircling our dead embers.

  I squatted across from him. He looked up, but we exchanged no word.

  Dr. Trefusis’s blood was on the sand where he had fallen. I reached down and touched it with my fingers. It had dried; and the thought came to me that he had been dead for some twelve hours.

  I ran my fingers through the sand; I pressed both of my hands into the dirt and left my impress in the earth.

  I still could shed no tears, though calculating for that purpose, I marshaled thoughts of him — memories of that excellent being, gentle and caustic, rocking in the nursery at the College of Lucidity, his knees pulled up against him, regaling me with tales of warriors such as I wished to be, a warrior such as now I was.

  My hands were in the dirt, amidst the traces of him — he who was my father, my grandfather — and I lifted that dirt to my face and put his mark upon me. I dragged the ash across my cheeks, the blood over my lips — I ground the dust into my eyes with the heels of my hands — blinding myself with him — and that element stinging — at last, I wept.

  And now my heart finally broke, for which, at last, I was grateful. I lay his grave-dirt upon my tongue. It tasted of blood and birth, and of the world upon which we had walked together for a little space.

  I cried, and was smeared with the funeral ashes, my tears cutting tracks; Bono came to my side, weeping too, and put his arm around me, and said my name, and we sat in the dark with the rebel watch-fires burning in the air across the water; and we mourned.

  We left our tent, as it was too torn from grapeshot for salvage.

  Through the night: our torches; the trundling of the wooden trucks through mud; a slave riding past in a phaëton, smoking a pipe; the women weeping on the shore, awaiting the dinghy which should row them to their berth. I carried a child upon my back as her mother walked beside me.

  Great crowds still waited for transport at the beach, before the rebels should set out in their boats to conquer the island. It was a scene of utmost confusion.

  Pro Bono and I sought out the body of my tutor, where he leaned against a tree. We began to dig a grave, though there was no solemnity there, no rite, no sorrow even, at that chore. We were interrupted by a subaltern, who scolded us and told us to leave the body lie. We protested; but curiously, without vigor, for the body seemed so empty.

  We left him once more, called to labor.

  At dawn, the firing began again. Bono and I were at the time deployed with a cart upon the northwest point. We ducked at the first blows, then, accustomed to detonation, hurried with our burden toward the embarkation point.

  We could not forbear looking backwards, across Milford Haven. A schooner burned in the shallows.

  The rebel canoes spilled from the creeks and darted across the inlet, muskets firing. A sloop’s crew assayed flight in their longboat, but they were overtaken. The fleet of canoes passed them by, paddling strong for the isle.

  We could see across the Haven, toward the hospital; and there we spied the distant sick struggling out of their huts. Our soldiers ran past them toward our fleet, anxious to escape before the rebels landed and overran them.

  We watched sick men crawling upon the ground, holding out their hands in supplication to Redcoats who scurried past; begging to be lifted and carried.

  Upon the northern beach, we encountered Captain Mackay, who received each detachment of our Company, and bade us unload our cart into one of the boats. We did so swiftly, and returned to his side.

  Over the stumps and rutted tracks of the island, we saw the enemy militia land in their canoes and gain the isle. They swarmed across our emplacements and redoubts, observing us with the temerity of the conqueror.

  Captain Mackay did not mark their progress. We gestured at them and he turned. Bono informed him that from the promontory, we had seen the far end of the island, and that none had yet removed the sick; that they were crawling to the water for fear of the enemy.

  “Removed?” said the Captain.

  “The sick, sir,” said I.

  “What mean you, ‘removed’?”

  “We are evacuating,” said Bono.

  The captain nodded assent. “They have been removed, soldier,” he lied.

  We began to remonstrate; but he walked away, calling orders, and we heard Olakunde’s drum bidding us fall in.

  “They can’t leave them,” said I, and then, emending: “We. We cannot be.”

  “Jesus have mercy on us,” said Bono. “Please have mercy.”

  “They cannot leave the sick,” said I, “to fend.”

  We were sent forward to wade into the surf and greet our transport. I stood with the water around my legs.

  We were soon embarked; they rowed us out toward the Crepuscule.

  Smoke arose behind us from the island, and with horror, we saw that it issued from the pest-house. The sick lay there still, and the fire burned, and the smoke arose. The rebels had laid torch to the hospital huts, afraid of contagion. They had set them afire with the dying still lain there.

  We gained the ship and boarded. Once more, we were within the hold.

  Behind us, my tutor lay against a birch, his jaw torn asunder and hanging.

  And so we were defeated, and awaited our last, long flight and the end of our campaign.

  My recollections of that evacuation are disordered. Let two final memories suffice:

  In late afternoon, as we waited to sail, there arrived three boatloads of slaves, newly escaped, having hazarded dangers unimaginable, hearing of Lord Dunmore’s promise of freedom and his isle.

  My Company were upon the decks, surveying the shore, which prospect was infested with rebels at their work.

  The slaves called up to us, “That the island?”

  Captain Mackay said to us, “Do not speak.” He walked to the gunwales and to those who drifted below, explained, “The rebels have taken the island. We evacuate.”

  The slaves were distressed, and requested we throw them down a hawser, that they might board us.

  “You will have to row on,” said our Captain. “You cannot stop here.”

  A man called, “There ain’t noplace to row to.”

  The Captain said, “We have no water. We have no food.”

  They paddled to the side of the ship, and one of them made to take hold of the stays.

  “You cannot board,” said our Captain.

  Now a large number of people in our fleet, drawn out by the exclamations and pleas of the refugees, observed the incident from the decks of their ships. To several ships, application was made, but the officers aboard all of them were unbending, and the answer came again and again, “You must row on.”

  Now the rebels harked to the proceedings; we saw them watching from the shore, though they could not hear. They observed from their canoes; an audience little comforting to those who begged for mercy in the water by our side. To our ears came distant jeering cries of, “Come to us! Come to us, sweeties!”

  The slave who had seized upon the stays of our ship stood, and, casting a glance toward the mob awaiting him upon the shore, began to climb, his knees clasped around the cords.

  “Back down, man,” said our Captain. “We shall fire.”

  He called his orders, and a file of Marines presented their muskets. The man stalled in his progress, seeking a further handhold. The women in the boat rose and gripped the stays.

  “You cannot board,” repeated our Captain. “There is no succor here.”

  “We come this whole way,” said one of the women.

  “If you do not row on,” said the Captain, “we shall fire.”

  The man said, “Please, sir. Please,” and hauled himself up still further.

  The Captain called, “Fire.” The Marines let loose a volley, and the slave fell into the waves and sank, then rose again, and sank while the women screa
med.

  At this sight, this betrayal, there arose from all of us upon the decks of those ships a great moan, protests in all those hundred tongues, as if all the nations of the world cried out in horror.

  And yet the women released their grip upon our ship; and the three boats were washed away from us.

  The canoes paddled out to greet them.

  We saw them try to flee, but they had no art in navigation. We saw them surrounded, and observed as they begged and importuned; we saw them towed to the island and dragged ashore, the mob awaiting them, engorged with victory, armed with brickbats and bayonets.

  And so the Sons of Liberty fell upon them, and they were seen no more.

  This I recall, and have learned of the details from Bono: When we fled the beach for our transports, sensible of our hazard, the enemy marching upon us across the fields, we splashed through the shallows — and I saw Better Joe standing desperately upon the shore behind us. He called for assistance.

  I saw Charles return for him, despite their quarrel; saw him lift the old man upon his back and charge with him into the foam. Better Joe pushed at the young man’s head; seemed to remonstrate; and Charles said something in their tongue. Said Bono later, Better Joe had asked, “Why do you carry me?”— and Charles had replied swiftly, “Because it is an honor for a young man to carry his betters.” He held out his hand to be gripped.

  And thus, they plunged toward the transport: young man with wise man upon his shoulders, dashing through the waves.

  There is no purpose in recalling what then transpired, our long flight, our final defeats. We sailed that day. Then there was, that night, the storm, and ships which had cut their anchor cables to escape the assaults of rebellion were now incapable of mooring, and so were dragged ineluctably toward shore. The Dunmore’s mizzenmast, cracked by shot, collapsed, and took with it the main topmast. Two ships sank, their crews screaming for aid in their longboats.

  At first we starved; the second day, I procured some tallow candles for Bono, Nsia, Olakunde, and myself, and we ate them with thanks. As we ate, we watched two sailors eye Vishnoo, this time with no jest in their appraisal. I recalled Slant’s words: “Another thing can’t die. Not one more thing.”

  Days later, I could not find the tortoise, and apprehended that hunger had wrestled custom and comity and triumphed over them both. It was with despair that I related this circumstance to Olakunde, stern Olakunde, who bid me not to weep for the tortoise.

  “It is not for the tortoise,” said I, “but the remembrance of our friends.”

  We were, that day, sent ashore on a foraging detail; and while we herded sheep, Olakunde drew me apart from the others to a place where we were embowered, and he lay down his drum and loosed its fastenings. Within lay Vishnoo. “One of us live,” quoth Olakunde, and we lifted out the animal. We set him at liberty in the wood.

  Vishnoo stood uncertain upon the leaves. We urged him to flee, Olakunde tying the head back upon his drum. That amiable animal stood uncertain of the solid ground, and would not move. We could not longer tarry; he stood.

  We abandoned him to a kinder fate and the dictates of nature. None knew how long he hath already lived; he may still thrive a full century more, there upon that isle. He shall perhaps be the last witness to our history, the final creature to have seen Lord Dunmore’s Royal Ethiopian Regiment and its deeds.

  Two days later, Olakunde himself was taken from my sight. Major Byrd wanted a drummer for actions up the river. Olakunde was plucked from our number. We have not seen him again.

  Common report — which I cannot credit — even now, I cannot credit it — common report vows that Lord Dunmore, finished with our number, unable to discover any more utility in our Regiment, sent the other half of us down to the Sugar Isles, that they might be sold to the plantations there, so that there might be some profit from this profitless struggle. If he did so, betrayed them thus, perhaps Olakunde was among them; I still do not know his fate.

  The misery which engulfed my senses — even now — Good God, if Dunmore hath committed this — if he hath — there is no pit in Hell too hot, no punishment too searing — my quill will not write of it — too pliant, not iron, not blood — the mind cannot receive the image — We shall make you proud to serve us, soldier, said he, proud to serve us — then so many of us lost — and yet there is no punishment, no outcome but the profit; and I lay in the dark of our deck; I could not sleep, I could not eat, and there was no room in which to move. I could not be roused, and was as a dirt-eater, a staring eye.

  Black hold, the detonations fierce, floor puddled with wet sick; heaving; victory blotched by fog and rain, the wind meddling, ships luffing, stoving up as if careened; and I below. Upon Mr. Gitney’s desk: Defeat curls within the body as a mouse’s skeleton within the scum of fur and weed left by the owl; for it is infinitely light, and empty of all motivation, and longs in its posture for an impossible sleep.

  Some time ago, I fought for the rebel, digging his trenches, mounding his earth; and found myself deceived; and so I fled to the only other power that might protect me, and I pledged myself among these staunch enemies of rebellion, and digged their trenches, and mounded their earth, and killed for them; and yet we were discarded when we were no longer of use.

  Rebel or Redcoat, there were none who needed to use us sufficiently to save us.

  What more to tell? There were skirmishes; and still we fled upon the ships, and could find no haven. We were pursued on every shore, hunted like foxes, coursed like hares. We were fired upon, and heard shots in the night, signals between rebels on opposite shores, but knew nothing of what these shots might mean, the language of ordnance spoken in the gloom. All were against us. We could not progress; and so we fled.

  I prayed that the Lord should destroy utterly the children of men. It seemed to me that we were a race so poisoned in every motive that we should never find happiness; for should felicity appear in one nation, the others must sweep down upon it to destroy it; and it seemed to me that we must be obliterated with a new and profounder deluge, one deep enough to encompass all nations, so that Christ might begin again with a better creature. And as the ship heaved in a storm, I heard the wailing of an infant, which would not cease though the mother proffered her breast. The babe screaming, beating air, I looked upon it, a horror rising in me that there should be still another generation of this verminous race, this piebald mammal, this predator howling for something to batten upon. Its face was empurpled with rage at its limited dominion.

  My instinct was to strike it in disgust; to stamp it out; but of course, I stayed my hand. I backed away from its bestial cry and prayed for gentleness, sank to my knees and prayed as best I could.

  And so we sailed on.

  The day in December upon which Dr. Trefusis, Pro Bono, and I were reunited, before Norfolk was burned, before the plague took us, before Gwynn’s Island fell, we crouched together in the rank darkness of the Crepuscule, and Bono related to us the tale of his escape; and with childish zany, he and my tutor jested and mocked our surly officer; and, we being once more together, we did not merely rejoice, but in our convergence projected great clash and triumph to come. While they recounted and sported, I pretended study, regimental discipline at that early date not having yet surrendered to the negligence of tactical despair.

  That night, Bono talked of flight — and John Locke, beneath my indifferent eye, spoke of place and of motion. Locke wrote that if we have a chess piece — a black king — upon a board, and we remove the chessboard into a different room, we should still say that the black king had not moved its place, if it still stood upon the same square; for we judge its place according to locations upon the board. And such would be true of the board as well, said to remain motionless if it stayed upon the same desk in the cabin of a ship, though the ship makes its way along a river, and the river moves against the fixed land, and the Earth hath turned in its revolutions, swinging with it land, and river, and ship, and cabin, and desk, and board, and ki
ng, and pawn. Still would the board and the black king be in the same place; for motion is not absolute.

  I recall this lesson now, O best of tutors, kindest of wards, philosopher most delighted and most despairing; I recall it as I think upon our travels, upon our fleet’s ignominious flight, upon the betrayals offered to my people; as I think of the forests through which Negroes still flee, and the rivers down which they pass in terror and hope of liberty, ignorant of Dunmore’s motion and removal. I know not whether there is possibility of change and motion, or whether we are all stranded within one monadic unity; but when I ask Where doth the black king stand, and where the cabin, and where the ship in motion? then do change and motion disappear: for what is flight, if you cannot approach safety? What is a sojourn, if you have no home to return to? How doth one conduct a campaign, if there be no hope of victory? For we shall always be human, and always vicious; suspended motionless, yet never at rest; trapped, yet without any solid thing to grasp.

  I cannot continue this narrative. A quest must have a final goal, and each campaign its objective, that their success might be judged; but here is no goal which might be obtained, motion toward no succor, a campaign without territory to claim or lose, the field shifting beneath our prow.

  There is nothing. And so I make my end.

  “Lo! Thy dread Empire, Chaos, is restored;

  Light dies before thy uncreating word:

  Thy hand, great Anarch, lets the curtain fall;

  And universal Darkness buries All.”

  [From Purdie’s Virginia Gazette, July 19th, 1776]

  PARTICULAR ACCOUNT OF THE ATTACK

  AND ROUT OF LORD DUNMORE, WITH HIS

  PIRATICAL CREW, FROM GWIN’S ISLAND.

  We got to the Island on Monday, the 8th of July, and next morning began a furious attack upon the enemy’s shipping, camp, and fortifications, from two batteries — one of five six- and nine-pounders, the other mounting two 18-pounders. . . .